A Taste for Violence ms-17

by Brett Halliday

  20

  When they were seated in Shayne’s car, he delayed starting the motor while he explained briefly how he had bluffed Seth Gerald into forcing his appointment as chief of police.

  “But you haven’t got those letters threatening Charles Roche’s life,” she protested. “You haven’t even seen them.”

  Shayne grinned and turned on the ignition. “Gerald doesn’t know that. That’s why I’m working fast. I’ll hold my job just so long as George Brand stays in jail charged with murder. If I released him the whole thing would blow up in my face. The more I get done before that happens, the better it’ll be for Centerville.”

  “Do you think Gerald did kill Roche?”

  “Right now it looks more like Jimmy. But as long as Gerald thinks I have those threatening letters to spring on him, he’s going to be well satisfied to have all the suspicion rest on Brand.”

  “What does Jimmy say?”

  “I’ve avoided pushing him into a corner where he’ll have to say anything. Unless Gerald has spilled it, he doesn’t even know I have any idea he was at Brand’s place that night. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to get Ann Cornell and her hophead out of town quietly. Jimmy doesn’t know whether they’ve talked or not. I don’t want him to know. As long as I keep everything quiet and appear to be building up the case against Brand, I’ll have a free hand with the police department.” He was driving slowly, and as he reached the main street he turned to the right.

  “I’ve never known you to be like this, Michael. You’ve always accepted police corruption with a shrug. Won’t the whole thing just go right back into the same old groove when you leave?”

  Shayne stopped in front of the Central Hotel. His gaunt face was serious and his eyes bleak when he said, “Something happened to me, Lucy, about the third time I was told, “This is Centerville.’ As though this was Germany, or Turkey. Not Centerville, U.S.A. Not the United States at all. Those three words answer every question here. They say there isn’t any justice, there isn’t any hope, there isn’t any future. No one tries to do anything because they accept the fact that nothing can be done.”

  His doubled fist struck the steering wheel in a surge of anger. “Maybe something can be done. George Brand pointed the way. For a little while these people began to believe in something.”

  He gritted his teeth and was silent for a while. “I’ve always liked things tough,” he resumed. “This is the toughest setup I ever walked into. It’s not that I’m burning up to reform the world, but I’ll be goddamned if I’ll admit this thing is bigger than I am. Let’s go,” he ended abruptly.

  Lucy followed him into the hotel lobby, away from groups of people huddled on the sidewalks talking together and turning to stare at Shayne’s tall, lanky figure. The hotel management was glad to cooperate when he asked for a key to Myron J. Stanger’s room. Every eye in the lobby followed them to the elevator, and they saw the idlers get up from their chairs and converge upon the manager’s desk just before they got in the elevator to go up.

  It was evident that the Washington attorney had stopped at the hotel only long enough to deposit his things before hurrying to seek an interview with his client. There was a Gladstone and a worn pigskin bag on the floor, and a strapped briefcase on the bed.

  Shayne went straight to the briefcase and unstrapped it, found it locked, and got out his keyring. The lock came open easily and he dumped the contents on the bed. He said to Lucy, “See if his bags are locked.”

  He went swiftly through the documents from the briefcase while Lucy tried the locks on the bags and told him they were locked. Shayne turned from the bed, unlocked both bags with practiced ease, opened the Gladstone and said to Lucy, “You go to work on that one. Don’t worry about messing his stuff up. If we find what we want he won’t have any kick coming. If we don’t, we’re sunk anyhow.”

  “What do you want?” Lucy asked helplessly as she knelt beside the pigskin bag and began lifting out underwear and socks.

  “Money,” Shayne told her. “A wad of cash… and an agreement signed by Charles Roche setting forth the terms on which the strike was to have been settled if he’d lived.”

  “Oh! Do you think it will be here?”

  “I want it if it is,” he said impatiently. He had finished one side of the Gladstone and turned to the other. “Stanger and I have different ideas about the use for that document,” he went on, exactly as though Lucy knew all about everything. “I don’t… hold it!” he exclaimed. “I think this is what we want.”

  He tossed aside a pair of folded pajamas, emptying the suitcase, and dug with his finger nails at the edge of a fine slit in the inner cloth lining of the bag. He ripped it open and drew out a flat typewritten document with a thin packet of bills inside.

  Lucy looked over his shoulder as he riffled through the bills. There were twenty of them, all of thousand-dollar denomination. He wadded them carelessly in his pocket and read swiftly through the first page of the agreement, noted the inked initials at the bottom, “G.B.” and “C.R.” and turned to the next page to verify the signatures and date.

  He said, “This is what we need. Pick up the phone and call Mr. Seveir at the Gazette office. Tell him to be in my office in ten minutes.”

  Shayne was waiting at the hotel room door when Lucy hung up the receiver. They went out and down to the car.

  Mr. Seveir made no pretence that he wasn’t worried and frightened when he faced Centerville’s new chief of police across his desk a quarter of an hour later. He took off his gold-rimmed glasses and polished them nervously and admitted, “Frankly, Mr. Shayne, the town is so full of rumors that I disregarded all of them in today’s edition. Some people say you’ve released all the prisoners and have fired several from our police force. Others say you’ve arrested both Chief Elwood and the mayor and are torturing them frightfully. If you care to give me a statement…”

  “That’s what I called you here for. First, I want to know what the facilities are in Centerville for getting dispatches out of town. Are there any press bureaus here? The AP or any of those?”

  “None of the large press associations have offices here. The Gazette is a member of the Associated Press and we put anything on the wire that seems of more than local importance.”

  “How fast?” Shayne leaned back and regarded the nervous publisher through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “If an important story breaks here,” he amended, “how long a period would elapse before it hit the front pages throughout the country?”

  “Depending on the timing, of course. It would go over the teletype immediately and be picked up in other cities at once. You realize, of course, that the afternoon editions of most dailies are already set up by noon and the presses running. An afternoon release would make the early morning editions.”

  Shayne nodded and drummed his fingertips on the desk. “I presume your teletype apparatus is the only wire medium for a message to go out after the regular telegraph office closes at night.”

  “That’s correct. Since we have no railroad here, there is no all night telegraph office. The lack of a railroad is one of Centerville’s greatest economic handicaps in getting out coal, and the Gazette believes…”

  “Where is the closest railroad?” Shayne interrupted absently.

  “Slag Junction. That’s a forty-mile haul by truck, and you can readily understand why wages in the mines have to remain low to meet that increased cost.”

  Shayne turned in his chair and called, “Lucy.”

  She appeared immediately from an inner office and he said, “Get the railroad depot at Slag Junction on the telephone. I want a record of all telegraph messages filed at the station night before last. They won’t want to give them to you, but tell them this is official business.”

  He turned back to Seveir. “Who owns the Gazette?”

  “I’m the owner,” Seveir told him.

  “No stockholders? No mortgages?” Shayne persisted.

  “I built up the Gazette from a small weekly
paper, Mr. Shayne. I really don’t see…”

  “Who tells you what not to print?” Shayne interrupted grimly.

  “I told you last night,” the publisher began, but Shayne interrupted him again:

  “And I offered you a first-hand story on conditions in the local jail but you didn’t take me up. And I gave you a direct quotation to print in your paper today, but it isn’t in the edition I saw. Why not? Who told you to kill the story?”

  “The Gazette’s editorial policy is my own,” said Seveir stiffly. “I have to consider what’s best for the community as a whole.”

  “And what’s pleasing to your advertisers?”

  “A paper like the Gazette is dependent on the good will of its subscribers and advertisers, Mr. Shayne. I wouldn’t remain in business long if I failed to recognize the duty I owe to the best interests of Centerville.”

  “Meaning the mine operators… and the Roche mines particularly. I understand that, Seveir. I wanted to hear you say it out loud so we’d have a basis for further discussion.” He passed the two typewritten sheets he had taken from Stanger’s Gladstone across to Seveir just as Lucy hurried in with a slip of paper.

  Lucy’s face was glowing with excitement. Disregarding the visitor, she exclaimed, “Michael! How on earth did you know?” She laid the paper before him and pointed to the second item. “There were only two wires night before last. This is the one you wanted, isn’t it?”

  Shayne read the brief message and the name signed to it. He said quietly, “That’s it, Lucy. We’re ready to go now. Wait a moment.” He stopped her as she turned away. “I have a hunch I’m going to need you to draw up a little agreement between Mr. Seveir and myself.” He looked across at the perspiring publisher who was intent upon the agreement Charles Roche had prepared and signed before his death.

  “This is extraordinary,” sputtered Seveir. “A damnable betrayal of his class. Heaven knows what the consequences would be now if this thing were made public. It’s absolutely subversive.”

  Shayne leaned back and studied the publisher with narrowed eyes. “I take it you wouldn’t want to publish a full text of that agreement in tomorrow’s Gazette. Along with proof that Mr. Persona, chairman of the board of AMOK, had a secret agreement with George Brand to pay out a slush fund of twenty thousand dollars in the event the strike was defeated.”

  “I wouldn’t touch a thing like that,” declared Seveir, pushing the document away from him in horror. “There’s no telling what repercussions might follow. The confidence of the people would be undermined. The whole structure of our society…”

  “How would you like to take a long vacation, Mr. Seveir?”

  “A vacation?” he faltered. “I don’t believe I understand.”

  “A trip around the world. Freedom from care for a while. Forget the newspaper business and the underpinning of society. You must have promised yourself such a vacation for a long time. Hasn’t your wife urged you to do something like that?” Shayne spoke casually with an underlying tone of concern, as for an old friend.

  Mr. Seveir moved his thin lips nervously before he replied, “Why yes. For a good many years I’ve been promising her… but… I don’t understand, Mr. Shayne.” Perspiration stood out on his forehead, and his glasses were misted over. He took out a snowy white linen handkerchief, unhooked his glasses, wiped them carefully, then mopped his brow.

  Shayne leaned forward and propped his elbows on the desk. “How much does the Gazette net you in a year?”

  Seveir’s thin hands shook as he replaced his glasses. “I don’t see why I’m required to reveal my…”

  “How much?” Shayne said harshly.

  “Our gross earnings were slightly over twenty-five thousand last year,” said Seveir proudly. “But with salaries and overhead and taxes…”

  Shayne settled back again while Seveir tried to figure what he had left after overhead and taxes were computed. He said, “I’ll make you a proposition. This is flat and final and requires an immediate yes or no. I’ll preface my offer by explaining that hell is about to break loose in Centerville. The strike you’ve just seen won’t be a patch on what’s coming. You can’t do one damned thing to prevent it by staying here and running the Gazette. Here’s my proposition:

  “I’ll lease the paper from you for six months. The entire plant, good-will, staff and everything. I’ll pay you a net rental of a thousand dollars a month for six months. One-half down in cash when you sign the agreement and the balance in monthly installments. You can have a good time on a grand a month, Seveir. You can do all the things you’ve been promising yourself and your wife for so many years.”

  “But I’m not ready to retire. Not for years yet.”

  “Six months,” Shayne pressed him. “You get your paper back then. Along with a decent town.” He was digging in his pocket and brought out the wad of thousand-dollar bills. He counted off three of them before Seveir’s fascinated eyes, and pushed them across the table. “You’ve got just one minute to think it over. Then the offer will be withdrawn and won’t be made again.”

  As though hypnotized by the sight of so much money, the publisher touched the bills tentatively with his fingertips. He wet his thin lips and tried to say something, then took off his glasses to polish them again.

  Shayne turned to Lucy and said, “Draw up a simple memorandum for us to sign. Make it in the form of a letter from Mr. Seveir to me, setting forth the terms I’ve just mentioned. Type it in triplicate.”

  He turned back to the publisher and said quietly, “I don’t believe you like a lot of things you’ve been forced to do to show a profit here in Centerville. I don’t blame you for riding with the tide, but that tide is turning, Seveir. All you have to do is step aside and get paid for it. That shouldn’t be a difficult decision. Frankly, Centerville isn’t going to be a safe place during the next few months. I’ll put that agreement signed by Roche before the miners if I have to distribute handbills. They’re going to be angry, and they aren’t going to be pleased with a local paper that refuses to print the news.”

  “I’ll step aside.” Seveir’s voice was brittle. “If you can give the miners an even break, it’s more than I’ve dared do.”

  Lucy re-entered the room with a brief typed memorandum. She gave each man a copy and Shayne said, “Now send a wire to Timothy Rourke in Miami: ‘Come on first plane. Have just leased daily paper for six months. Need you to manage campaign guaranteed to undermine quote civilized unquote society. Heads will roll tomorrow and mine among them if you not here to help. Mike Shayne, Chief of Police, Centerville, Kentucky.’”

  He grinned widely as he finished, and Lucy Hamilton laughed outright. “Tim will never believe it,” she declared. “He’ll be sure it’s just a drunken hoax.”

  “He’ll call me the minute he gets it,” Shayne assured her, “collect.” He glanced over his copy of the memorandum while Lucy went to file the telegram.

  Mr. Seveir’s hand trembled when he took his fountain pen from his pocket and unscrewed the top, but he signed his name to both copies of the document with a firm hand. Still dazed and unbelieving, and with three thousand dollars in his pocket and six months vacation beckoning to him, he went from the office.

  Lucy came in and perched herself on a corner of Shayne’s desk. “All right, master-mind,” she said sweetly. “Tell me what you intend to do with a six-months lease on the Centerville Gazette.”

  Shayne chuckled and said, “Just keep your eyes open and you’ll see the fireworks.”

  “Well, from what I’ve seen and heard of things around here you’ll last about thirty minutes after Tim’s first issue hits the street with that strike agreement story.”

  “Things are going to be different,” he reminded her. “I’m chief of police now. Even AMOK’s hired gunmen are going to find it tough if Persona tries to bring them in again.”

  “How long do you expect to hold the job after that agreement is printed? Seth Gerald put you in and he can yank you out just as fast,”
she argued.

  “Not as long as he thinks he might be accused of murder by doing so. He’s stuck with me as long as Brand stays in jail waiting conviction. I can delay his trial for months… long enough to get the miners aroused when they learn how they’ve been sold down the river.”

  “But how can you hold Brand in jail?” Lucy faltered. “You said all along that existence of this agreement signed by Roche would be all the evidence needed to clear him.”

  Shayne looked at her in astonishment. “Good Lord, Lucy! Have you forgot that telegram?”

  “The one from George Brand? How did you manage to guess that, Michael? That it had been sent from Slag Junction?”

  “I knew it had to be something like that as soon as Stanger said he left Washington before noon to drive down… after reading about the case in the paper. Hell, it couldn’t have been in a Washington paper before noon. Not even a flash about Roche’s murder, much less the news of Brand’s arrest which didn’t happen until noon. You heard what Seveir said about the timing of dispatches to hit different editions.”

  “Oh… I see,” said Lucy thoughtfully. “I realize now how you knew Brand must have managed to inform Stanger that he was in trouble. And I even see how you guessed that the important business that delayed Stanger in Lexington was to get that money out of escrow. But what does it all mean?”

  He looked at her curiously, then lifted the slip of paper she had laid on his desk. “Here’s the telegram that was sent from the railroad station at Slag Junction at four-ten yesterday morning.” He read it aloud to her:

  “MYRON J. STANGER,

  NATIONAL UNION FOR WORKERS JUSTICE, CHASE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.

  COME AT ONCE PER AGREEMENT. USE POWER OF ATTORNEY LEXINGTON BANK

  TOMORROW AS INSTRUCTED. SEE ME BEFORE TALKING TO ANYONE.

  BRAND.”

  He flipped the sheet of paper away. “Don’t you realize what that means, Lucy?”